Re: The impact of data format selection on application development

Simple is good but does not always scale. The caveat on simplicity is the
simplest thing that works.

On Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 4:47 AM Stephen D Green <[email protected]>
wrote:

> You can write a simple little data format specification if the
> groundwork has been done, the foundation already laid, which handles
> the underlying complexity. This is what allowed J**N to be such a
> simple little spec.
> ----
> Stephen D Green
>
> On Sun, 10 Jul 2022 at 13:22, Roger L Costello <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > Recently I have been reading a wonderful book titled "Little Languages
> and Tools". Its authors are Jon Bentley, Brian Kernighan, Paul Hudak, and
> others. The book shows how programs written in little languages such as
> AWK, Lex, Yacc, pic (picture language), scatter (scatter plot language),
> troff, sed, can be independently developed and assembled via pipes
> >
> >               scatter infile | pic | troff >outfile
> >
> > Little languages provide a powerful way to quickly implement robust
> tools.
> >
> > Reading the book made me keenly aware of one thing: The XML data format
> is complex! Compare the densely written 36-page XML specification (plus the
> 16-page namespace specification) to this three-sentence specification of a
> data format:
> >
> > The data format consists of lines. Each line contains fields. Fields are
> separated by a delimiter (space, tab, comma, etc.).
> >
> > You might argue that such a data format is too simple to be useful. Not
> so! Much data may be expressed using that data format: a list of data about
> persons (name, age, gender). A list of data about aircraft in the Boeing
> inventory (model, weight, wingspan, max speed). A list of data about wild
> flora in the Amazon rainforest (species, size, lethality). A list of data
> about books (title, author, publisher). The types of data amenable to that
> data format is virtually endless. For data items that aren't in that
> format, there are tools available for putting them into the format.
> >
> > Simple data formats often spawn the development of powerful little
> tools. AWK is one such tool. With a line or two of AWK code you can quickly
> implement powerful data filters for transforming data in the above data
> format.
> >
> > What is the role of XML as a data format? What is the role of very
> simple data formats such as the one above? The answer is not clear-cut in
> my mind. What does seem clear, however, is that choosing the right data
> format can have a significant impact on application development - on the
> ease of development, on the cognitive load it incurs on the developer and
> maintainer, on the ability to create independent tools that can be
> assembled in a pipeline.
> >
> > "The important thing, as always, is to find a way of looking at the
> input data that makes it easy to lay out the program." ["Software Tools" by
> Brian Kernighan, p. 42]
> >
> > Comments?
> >
> > /Roger
> >
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